Re: Science is CHANGING

["T. Mike Keesey" <tmk@dinosauricon.com>]

On Thu, 18 Oct 2001, David Marjanovic wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>
>
> >       Mike Keesey's dinosauricon is great, very detailed and useful for
> > professional and serious amateur dinosaurologists, but it is a
> > "cladification" (Ernst Mayr's term, not mine) and not a true classification
> > in the minds of much of the rest of the world.
>
> True.
> The names on the nodes and stems are, however.

I don't understand why it isn't a classification. It's a diagram showing
which taxa belong to which taxa. It's classifying lower taxa into higher
taxa, ergo, a classification.

> >      Case in point----SNOWFL96@aol.com wrote:
> > >Hi, does anybody know where the camarasaurids fit ...  Were they a sister
> > >group to the brachiosaurids?
> > >
> > Mike Keesey answered: _Camarasaurus_ is outside _Titanosauriformes_ (which
> > could be defined as Clade(_Brachiosaurus_ + _Titanosaurus_)), but inside
> > _Macronaria_ (Clade(_Saltasaurus_ <-- _Diplodocus_)).  It may form a clade
> > with other basal macronarians, such as _Aragosaurus_ and _Lourinhasaurus_,
> > which could be called _Camarasauridae_.
> >
> >      EGAD, is that the kind of answer Snowfl96 was looking for?  Don't know
> > for sure,
>
> This may be a complicated form of the answer, but HP T. Mike Keesey just
> said that maybe there is no (non-redundant) Camarasauridae in the first
> place.

Well, no, I said there may be one (including things like _Aragosaurus_ and
_Lourinhasaurus_). I don't see any problem with the answer I gave. I could
have been more succinct and said "_Camarasaurus_ is a basal macronarian,
outside of _Titanosauriformes_", but I felt I should explain what those
taxa are.

> For more visually oriented people:

Another good solution! (But make sure you're typing with a monospace font
next time -- there were some alignment issues which I straightened out.)

> Neosauropoda (node)
> |--Diplodocimorpha (stem)
> `--Macronaria (stem)
>    |?-*Haplocanthosaurus*
>    `--Camarasauromorpha (node)
>       |--*Camarasaurus*
>       `--Titanosauriformes (node)
>          |--Brachiosauridae
>          `--Titanosauria

_____________________________________________________________________________
T. MICHAEL KEESEY
 The Dinosauricon        <http://dinosauricon.com>
  BloodySteak             <http://www.bloodysteak.com>
   personal                <keesey@bigfoot.com> --> <tmk@dinosauricon.com>
    Dinosauricon-related    <dinosaur@dinosauricon.com>
     AOL Instant Messenger   <Ric Blayze>
      ICQ                     <77314901>
       Yahoo! Messenger        <Mighty Odinn>